Best Friend's Baby
by rainbowsecrets
Summary: What if the man I decided to take a chance on had superhero sperm? Bella and Edward are just friends... Friends that have sex on the odd occasion. What happen's when they take a risk and go with the flow? 'What do you mean? You did a test, it was negative.' 'I did another, it was positive.'
1. Chapter 1

Five minutes it says to wait the longest five minutes ever and then bam; your life is changed forever. Imagine what it would be like to have your life turned upside down. Actually I best not. I need to seriously calm down. 'Breathe Bella, Breathe' I chanted to myself. I had never in my wildest dreams imagined this, that I would be doing this. I watch the hands move on my DKNY watch, counting down the minutes, counting down to my fate. I really can't be? Can I?

It was only once! We had done the deed a many a times, but the one time that we just go with the flow. Images of that night come to be like photographs. Why oh why do I feel like everything is against us? That the world is against us? That this is going to happen and change my life forever.

Let's think how the hell did I get in this mess? Oh well the position wouldn't of helped. Oh shit! Me on my back, legs wrapped around his neck is possibly the most sperm receptive position of all time. And trust it to be on the fourteen day of my cycle, just typical. Why didn't I realise this sooner?

What else was wrong with this night? Oh the underwear. Navy blue lace knickers, and on a weekday. What am I trying to be a whore? And to add to this I can't drive. If I could have driven this could have all been avoided surely? If only my mother didn't think I need to be wrapped in cotton wool! If she had just trusted me that I could do it and bought me driving lesson at sixteen like any other reasonable mother in the whole world. If she didn't assume I was going to have an accident. She's thinks I am a walking accident, one that is just waiting to happen. I would have driven home, safely home, and most probably in some nice sensible knickers, and I could have been tucked up in bed by 11 p.m. instead of flat on my back with my legs around Edward Cullen's neck.

I cannot be pregnant. Please…Please…I'm begging you God! You can't do this to me! I don't even have a boyfriend, please don't punish me! Me and Edward are just good friends. Trust me on that. So we tend to fall into each other's beds after one too many drinks on a Friday night, when we wanted a cuddle. I swear we are only good friends. Nothing more. So please don't make me have a child. I know I've slept with him more times that it could be seen as just a one off, but it's still less than to be considered that we are seeing each other. After we have one of our little encounters, we don't end up spending the weekend together, we don't do couplely things together like going to garden centres or using cutesy voices on the phone; and I swear I have never bought his mother's birthday present on his behalf.

We don't act like a couple at all; we act like friends. Even in the morning when we wake up after I've stayed the night we just go our separate ways. Me back to my girly shared house and Edward to his Swanky looking flat in different areas of Seattle. At the end of the day we really are just two different people who live two different likes. So really this test can't be positive. It wouldn't work; me and Edward.

They say you only have to do it once and you could be pregnant. And what if the man I decided to take a chance on had superhero sperm? And it only takes one sperm, one chance, one moment, and then bam! Everything that you thought about in your future is changed. Moments unwritten have been written to at least some point. Life changed forever. That just sounds scary.

But anyway we're about to find out. I pick up the test. I'm looking at it now, I filled with nerves. All I can hear is my heart beating way to many beats per a minute. I grip the test tight in my hands and I'm trying to see straight and…

I AM! Shit I am! There are two lines! There are two…!

Oh. No.

But there's not.

I'm not because there are two lines, but there's no cross. Which means it's negative. No baby. Thank you Lord.


	2. Chapter 2

I have always thought that having sex with your male best friend would have one of two outcomes. Either it would be undisputed disaster, from which your friendship would never recuperate. Or it would be an epiphany. You'd wonder why on earth you'd never done it before.

I'd experienced the first: Eric Yorkie, at Seattle University, 1998. Eric was my best mate on my French course, until a moment of intoxicated insanity, around about the four drink point, the point at which I apparently believed I was alluring and was utterly irresistible; to all members of the opposite sex. That's also the point at which I should have gone to bed, my dignity in one piece; Intact. But no, it was this point I decided Eric Yorkie needed to know this; _that my French oral wasn't half as good as that in the bedroom._ We went back to my room in halls, closed the blue and pink curtains and poured each other glass after glass of cheap white wine. With each glass, the edges of his face grew more blurred as did any good judgement I'd ever possessed. After over an hour of trying to get a comatosed Eric to maintain an erection long enough to get a condom on, we passed out. When I woke up, my head bounding as if someone was living inside and drilling into the side of my head, the blackheads on his nose somewhat too close for comfort, I knew it had been a big, huge, no…colossal mistake. Excruciating, was the five minute walk across the campus to our first tutorial that day, one of the most excruciating experiences my life so far. I would love to know how anyone could act normal after you spent the night wrestling with your best friend, now ex-friends, and uncooperative penis? Trust me. There is no way; our friendship could come back from there.

But Edward is different; sex with him is never a disaster; but we haven't exactly had that light bulb moment either. It's just, you know, nice. Like getting into a warm bath after a freezing day, or finding a twenty dollar bill in your jeans pocket.

We met in November 1997, in the university library, both of us wading though our very first English essay. At eighteen years old I was a dangerous mixture of ecstatic and terrified to be officially independent. Two years my senior, Edward seemed like he'd been knocking around on his own all his life. He was sitting opposite me his head buried in the same books as mine was (and probably every other first year English lit student there). But it was the intense frown that really made me laugh, it told of utter and total bafflement. My feeling exactly!

'Is that making about as much sense to you as it is to me?' I said, hoping this guy was in need of a distraction too.

Edward looked up.

'You mean none whatsoever?'

'That's the one!'

He smiled, broadly.

That was it, we were off. Couldn't shut us up for two whole hours. We sacked off the work and went for a drink in the end because neither of us could figure out the book and we were having too much of a good time chatting. I felt like we had cracked the secret to something there that afternoon. Secret of life, or maybe that was the alcohol talking. But of all the personality fireworks I didn't fancy Edward that day, still don't, maybe that's why sex with him has never been a big deal. It's not that Edward's un-fanciable, far from it; he's just not my type. But he is most other girls. He facial features are perfect and angular, he has lovely full lips and green sparkly eyes, and hair of such a usual bronze colour. But I've never felt the urge to tear his clothes off.

If you had told me on the day we met or any time during the next eight years and six months, which is how long it took us to kiss, never mind have sex; that one day Edward Cullen and I would be occasional sex partners, I'd never have believed it. But we are and it's strange, most of all because I don't really get why it did take us so long. Until one cold weekend last May to be exact.

It was meant to be two day's hard graft cleaning up my parent's house, in a tiny place called Forks. I'd agreed to give it a makeover in return for a hundred dollars from my dad. I had asked Edward to help as he was the only person I knew who had a power drill, but from the first moment we got there, it felt more like a holiday than hard work.

I've never known larger taste as good as that first, exhausted pint drunk with Edward at the end of the first day. I remember the feeling I'd not been so happy for a long time. I told him about my childhood holidays spent here in Forks. He told me about his summers.

One pint turned into two, into threes, into four, until suddenly it was almost dark and we were surrounded by towers of empty bottles.

Edward sighed. 'This rocks, this is the best day I've had in ages.' Then he turned his head resting it on the wall and he added, 'With you.'

And it didn't feel awkward. I didn't get that feeling I was going to regret this in the morning. I just put my bottle down, threw my legs sideways over his knee and snogged him like we'd been going out for twenty odd years and this was one of those rare romantic nights made for rekindling the flame.

His hands slid up my thighs at a painstakingly slow speed. He started kissing my neck. I gasped, the shots of electricity were flying everywhere inside my body now. I was going to lose control any second. I took off his shirt feeling his ribbed abs and his flat stomach; he slowly started unbuttoning my shirt, kissing every bit of flesh that was revealed. Edward pulled my body against him, much harder than I was expecting. His fingers kept sliding up and down my smooth torso, feeling the slender fabric of my bra on the sides. I felt myself crumbling, forgetting everything but his touch and smell. The world was disappearing around us. All I could see, feel, smell was him. Him. I wanted him so badly. Now. Before it was too late.

"Please, please," I almost growled into his ear, trying to get it out before I was lost to my desire. "Please don't let this ruin anything. Please tell me. Anything. If I go too far." I felt incoherent. "This feels too good. My mind is going..."

He pushed away from me enough to look into my eyes. Before saying "Then just let it go." We'd kissed now, what the hell. Sex seemed like the most obvious next step.

"I've never met anyone like you," said Edward. "I'm probably closer to you than I am to anyone." And the thing was, right at that moment, I felt exactly the same.

"So, Swan that was going to happen all along was it not?" I remember Edward muttering as he stood in his boxers poring coffee into two chipped mugs. And I agreed. "Predictable as death," were the words I mumbled from under the duvet.

After all, if you rate one another highly enough to be close friends in the first place, then chances are; if you're opposite sexes, it's only a matter of time. That's not to say there aren't consequences. A quick of the carnage when I finally emerged that morning revealed my bra was hung on the back of a chair, my knickers up on the hob in the kitchen. There were CDs scattered all over the floor, ransacked in a frenzy of drunken delight, not one in its case. We'd danced to the backstreet boys, to George Michael, to Billy Joel for crying out loud! I'd made five thousand times the fool of myself as I had with Eric Yorkie and yet I wasn't one bit embarrassed.

I don't know what I expected after that night. I suppose I would have been happy to give a relationship a try, but then I was also petrified of ruining what we had. In the end, Edward made that decision for me; I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little deflated.

I called him on the Monday, the night after we got back. "I had a brilliant time this weekend," I said. Good opening I thought, perhaps this is where he says he couldn't agree more and ask me out?

Or not.

"Me too," he giggled. "It was a right laugh. I have particular fond memories of you doing a routine to I want it that way wearing only your pants."

Brilliant, I thought. Absolutely typical. Could it be, perhaps, that I failed to give off the right signals?

But maybe that was no bad thing. Maybe there's a reason we felt no embarrassment whatsoever after our antics. So unembarrassed were we, in fact, that, a year later we seem to have fallen into a habit of just 'Doing it' whenever the need for a little no strings nookie grabs us.

"Think of it as a way of extending the fun we're having," Edward always says, usually naked which doesn't exactly help, "like going to an afterhours bar."

And this suits me too, because I don't think I know what I want. I can't fathom the working of his brain either if truth be told. All I know is that Edward Cullen and I have crossed the line. We no longer purely platonic, but we aren't lovers either. We're just two misguided fools frolicking about in a vast sprawling, savannah sized space commonly known at the grey area.


	3. Chapter 3

It has been a whole week since the pregnancy scare and to be honest it is a good thing it was only a scare, because since then all I have done this week is accompanied people to different bars. Isn't it the curse of being unattached, that you end up attending everything with people because you're expect to. Since us, the unattached, have no flat or wedding or even dog to save up for.

Tonight is a total example of this. "I may kill someone if I don't get drunk this very evening," was Alice's threat down the receiver that I, in a mid-afternoon slump, had cradled between my head and the desk. "Sophia had decorated the walls with macaroni cheese," she said.

I love Alice, which is weird because it was far from love at first sight. In fact, thinking back to the first day we met in the university halls, when she introduced herself, I'm ashamed to say a little part of me withered with disappointment.

How could I, Bella swan, owner of:

Various pairs of old trainers

A very worn copy of Wuthering heights

A new but very scraggy looking hoodie

Obsession with Colin Firth

A poster of Che Guevara

Occasional marijuana habit that I fully intend to upgrade to moderate. Possibly this could happen because of sharing a room with Alice Brandon who owns:

Fluffy pink slippers

Designer clothes

Obsession with Dirty Dancing

Moderate horoscope reading habit.

The entire works of every boy band that you can think of.

But it was true and I was utterly gutted. Especially since I had just met a girl called Rosalie who had already designated her room as smoking zone. A room I wished I was sharing more than anything else in the world. Rosalie was the coolest girl in our halls and a guaranteed route to mischief, every night of the week. She had straight blonde hair that went to the middle of her back, she had an eccentric rose tattoo that went up the side of her body **,** and she owned a bong. And if that wasn't enough to make your average eighteen year old freshman practically pay to be her friend, she had about a million of her own friends from boarding school who were all as cool as she was.

It's easy to see how this Brandon girl didn't even get a look in during those first few days at university.

"Jasper says I can go out… I just need someone to go out with and guess what? You're the lucky lady!" Alice squealed down the phone, trying to be louder than Sophia. I don't really mind, Alice often inspires selfless acts of love from me.

I'd soon found out there was far more to this girl from New York than first met the eye. She could really put it away, for one. A childhood spent mixing drinks in her parent's bar saw to that. She had a real talent too, which whoever you are, I've always thought, can only add to your credibility.

I will never forget the last night of the first week of university, the night of the talent competition. Alice stood up, dressed in her Emilio Pucci Riviera print silk dress. She took the mike in one, and holding a Vodka and coke in the other, she began to sing. It was 'Waterfalls' by TLC and it was utterly brilliant. Nobody moved or spoke, everyone just stared at this girl, this girl that was suddenly possessed all but the ghost of Ella Fitzgerald. She finished the song, put the mike down on the table, gulped down the rest of her drink and sat down.

There were five seconds of dumb founded silence, save for Rosalie whispering 'Fucking Hell' next to me. Then we began to clap, first slowly and then uproarious applause. It was brilliant, mind blowing, made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end. Alice could sing a song with such soul because of her life experiences.

Her mum walking out on her dad for a man half her age and then dying of ovarian cancer two months later. She watched her dad go from jovial bar owner to suicidal recluse; she had to bring up her two little brothers pretty much single handed as well as singing in her dad's pub in the evenings for tips.

So yes, there was a lot more to Alice Brandon. Rosalie got the Alice thing too, eventually, and we had thing to teach each other back then. Rosalie and I taught Alice how to be an irresponsible teenager something she'd kind of missed. And Alice was our surrogate mother when we needed one most, I suppose. Always the one with the plan of action, the best hangover cures. And the fact she'd seen a lot in her short life meant you waking up in some inappropriate bloke's bed with no recollection of the night before was no big deal.

"Look, nobody died, did they?" Alice would say, sitting on my bed as I growled under the duvet with shame. "And look on the bright side; at least you didn't get so drunk you shit yourself." Ever since a girl called Lauren Mallory had, actually, got so drunk she shit herself, this had been the scale against which we measured all mortifying events. After all, nothing could ever, ever be that bad.

A fortnight into term one, Rosalie, Alice and I were pretty much inseparable. By late November I'd brought Edward into the fold and we'd became a proper gang; Or as my dad put it, "A foursome to be reckoned with."

And I loved my friends, I idolized them, still do. Tonight one of them is simply asking me to accompany her to a bar, her first baby free night for weeks, for a couple of quiet drinks on a Thursday night, I can usually think of nothing I'd rather do, it's just tonight, I could do with a little help. I need Edward. So I decided to text him.

 **E**

 **Brandon needs beer.**

 **I need bed. Help?**

 **B**

It only takes a couple of minutes for a reply to pop up on my phone.

 **B**

 **No can do, have hot date.**

 **I can come for the first hour**

 **to ease the pain but then I**

 **have to shoot. Going to see**

 **Swan Lake?! HELP!**

 **E**

The thought of Edward watching the dying swan, whilst wondering when he's going to fit in a pint and a snog brings a smile to my face. Still, an hour of his support is better than nothing; so I call Alice back and say 'You're on!'


	4. Chapter 4

Sixth night out in a row, I'm in the twilight bar, with Alice and Edward, my very best friends. "glass of rose for you Alice, and a pint of Copperhead pale ale for the gentleman in the corner." Passing Edward his pint.

"Aww thanks bells, you're a star." He downs half his pint in one go. "I tell you, to kill a mockingbird and 15-year olds, such a bad mix, wears me out every time."

"So, Eddie," Alice say, "How come to managed to get dragged to Swan Lake? How Come you're going to the ballet when you don't even like musicals?"

"It's not that I don't like musicals as such, I just don't like all musicals that's all." Edward nervously pulls on his jacket collar.

"Exactly which musicals do you like? I remember when we went to see Les Misérables for my birthday you said it was just a load of old women with massive tits, bounding about on the stage for what felt like days."

"I like Chicago, you know the one that was made into a gangster film?" Edwards states.

"The one with tons of gals in suspenders and stockings, you mean?' I join in.

"That's the one" winks Edward.

Alice nods her dead perceptively. "Ah yes, I should imagine you like that one."

Edward Looks at us, gives a short laugh, then looks away, shaking his head. This is his teacher face. It says, 'will you all just grow up' And the thing is, annoyingly, it kind of becomes him. Whereas everyone else went through, and came out of the other side of the 'I want to become a teacher' stage, Edward did it. And he's a natural too. So much so that in less than three years of English, he has been made head of the department. Edward knows his stuff, is genuinely mad about the subject and yet manages to never sound like a pretentious wanker. Well, hardly ever…

"Look," Edward Says, resignedly. "This girl's quite pleasant, she happens to like the ballet, she quite likes me and wants me to go. Since when is a crime for a man to indulge in some culture anyway?"

"No, it's not a crime as such, it's just quite a girlfriendly, going to the ballet just because 'she likes it'." I poke his arm playfully. 'Selflessness, I'd say, is the first sign of true love."

Alice folds her arms, "you know Irina won't be best pleased." She chips in.

Irina and Edward = a holiday fling that goes on being a holiday fling. Edward met her in Florida on lads' holiday a few years ago and they've had a 'understanding' (basically to be each other's bit of no-strings fun when he visits Florida, or she visits Seattle) ever since.

"Give it a rest will you." Edward sinks back into this chair. "Irina wouldn't carte anyway. Angela is a lovely woman but doesn't want anything serious any more than I do. You two are just jealous. I've got a date, I'm going somewhere interesting. Meanwhile you're in this bar talking about make-up and periods."

We tend to do this a lot, wind each other up. Sometimes I forget I've had sex with Edward. I forget he has seen me naked in all sorts of compromising positions. I don't remember how he's caressed my boobs, taken baths with me and commented on my rather relaxed upkeep of hair removal. It's like we are experts at compartmentalization. When we're having sex, we're tender and intimate. When we're not, we're friends. That's all, nothing more, nothing less. Just friends.

Edward Stands up and announces he's going. "Well, thanks but I'm going now. Going to get myself some refined company. A woman who knows how to conduct herself." He downs the rest of his pint, puts his glass on the bar, flashes up a V-sign and dashes out of the door. I watch him as he goes, bouncing along the pavement, hands in pockets, head down.

When I turn back, Alice is staring at me. "What?" I ask.

"You're smiling," she says.

"Am I?"

"Yeah, you're really smiling."

Here we go again. A night out with Alice is predictable, I know exactly what's coming, as many bottles of house rose as we can fit in and the obligatory 'but-you-are-really-secretly-in-love-with-Edward-aren't-you?' conversation.

Alice has a hug soft spot for Edward. "so, are you like fuck buddies? I mean is that how you'd define yourselves?" ash asks, looking at me over her wine glass.

Friends who have sex, that's exactly what we are. But we're not either, not in my eyes anyway, because 'fuck buddy' suggests it's all about the sex and not much about the friendship, and Edward and I are the opposite of that. "fuck buddies are all about the sex on tap without the emotional complications that come with actually caring about someone," I say to her. "And I do care about him, I love him to bits."

"I know you do," she says, Over-enunciating the words as though I am deaf. "And he loves you – a lot."

"But not like that," I say, staring into my glass. I always feel uncomfortable when she starts on this one. "As disappointing as it is and believe me, I'm disappointed too, it's not like that Edward and I are just friends. Friends who occasionally have sex and probably shouldn't, I know, I know; but we're still just friends."

Alice shakes her head, defeated. "Pretty weird ones if you ask me."

And on we went. Until I found myself stumbling out of the bar, at almost midnight, into the crisp ring of night air and no hope of getting home before one a.m.

I snake though crowds of people queuing for late-night bars, member's clubs and restaurants. It's like the playground of the free. A Zone of those who don't have to make any decisions yet, the circumstances of their lives still unravelling, for those still playing. And just for now, I'm playing too. But I've got a funny feeling that for me, the games almost over, the final whistle is nearly up, and I have to make some decisions and sort out what I actually want from life.

It's ridiculous to thing I could have been pregnant with Edward's Baby last week. Besides anything else, As I held that test in my hand, the potential father of the potential baby was on a date, just as he is tonight, and that can't be right, can it?

"It's Negative," I texted "You're off the hook."

I didn't even get this reply until I was standing in a bar an hour later: "Thank fuck for that. And you had me believe that belly was all baby."

Cheeky Fuck! So much for sharing the weight of responsibility.

I get the feeling that I've accelerated through most of my twenties in a beer-fuelled haze, when really I should be putting the brakes on, or at least starting to look where I'm going.


	5. Chapter 5

"Right Next Question," says Rosalie, adjusting her bikini top. Her tits jostle about in the water. "Riley?"

"Ok I've got a good one. What's the worst thing you've ever said in an interview?"

Royce cracks open a bottle of beer. "I once asked an interviewer when the baby was due," he mumbles.

"what's wrong with that?" I ask.

"She wasn't pregnant."

I almost wet myself laughing at this one. I don't know why, it's just the thought of Royce attending an interview, like, ever is suddenly hilarious. Royce is an artist.

It's now 2am, and I am currently in the hot tub with Rosalie (now my flatmate) her current shag Royce and a man I have never met before in my life. This is all too often the case these days; I don't plan to have a large one, it just sort of happens. It's one of the dangers of having a hot tub in the basement of your house.

Rosalie and I didn't plan to live together this long; that just sort of happened too. In our second and third year of university, all four of us shacked up together. Then once we graduated, Edward bought a flat with money he's saved up from this weekend job. Me, Alice and Rosalie moved in a house, and that was that.

At that point I was doing a diploma in magazine journalism. I thought I had made it living in Seattle, a career in the media at my fingertips. Trouble was, with its crumbly steps and security grating our house looked like a horror house. But we loved it and we loved our landlady just as much. Mrs Cope, did pay much attention to the upkeep of her properties as she did to the upkeep of herself, but at least she had the genius idea to install the hot tub. Our house has always been the back to mine post party house, scores of people padding their feet from the hall, to the basement and vice versa, to shrivel up in our hot tub and have drunken conversations about where we'll all be in five years' time. The trouble is, those five years are up now. You'd think that the novelty of having deep and meaningfuls in our swimwear would have somewhat worn off, but we're still at it.

It was very much a single girls pad. Then Alice committed the ultimate crime which was to not only marry Jasper, but to have his babies. It was, of course, totally predicable but still, Rosalie and I didn't expect to be here nearly a decade later. In fact Rosalie was so convinced that whatever bloke she was sleeping with at the time was going to ask her to move in with him, she didn't buy a bed for two years. And I thought I would be long gone, married, but were both still here, maxing up the rent so we don't have to get a third person in. Rosalie continues to go out with arseholes. And I coast along quite happily, odd sex with Edward, wondering how I wound up, twenty-eight and half, living like an ageing student.

When I eventually recover from my laughing fit I realize Rosalie is glaring at me. Rosalie doesn't like people laughing at her boyfriends, even when they offer up the jokes themselves.

'Bella can do better than that, can't you Bella?," she says, playfully "What's the worst thing you've ever said in an interview?"

Here we go, Rosalie loves to wheel this one out at every social occasion. "Do I have to?" I groan.

"yes, you have to. It's genius. Go on."

"I once told the head of a PR company that I was fluent in Italian," I sign "which would be have been fine, if I wasn't and she hadn't been Italian."

Rosalie claps her hands with glee. "love it! Cracks me up every time! I wouldn't mind but her name was Giovanna Mancini!"

And I have to admit. It is quite funny.

Its only when Riley starts playing footsie in the water, I come to my senses, realise I am shrivelled live a prune, and am utterly and totally shit-faced. When I eventually make to the sanctuary of my bedroom it's gone 3 a.m. I climb into bed, sink back into the coolness of my pillow and exhale, slowly, deeply. Outside I can still hear cars whizzing past, the faint sound of engines reeving, Seattle still alive and throbbing. I don't know how I'm going to get up tomorrow, or make it through the day on four hours sleep.

The other thing I don't know, it that somewhere deep inside of me, cells are multiplying, life is just beginning.

* * *

The Next morning I'm sitting on a stool drinking a much-needed coffee in the kitchen when Rosalie wanders in with Royce. Rosalie wanders over to the kettle, switches it on then pulls her curvaceous little frame up onto the worksurface. There's a flash of red kickers from underneath her dressing gown. "Tea or Coffee Royce?"

"Ermm Coffee Please, One Sugar." He leans back on the kitchen chair, stretching his arms above his head. He's wearing a vest, so I can see his thick dark underarm hair sprouting forth like those fake moustaches you get in joke shops.

I get up to put my bowl in the dishwasher and realize I'm not wearing a bra and my nipples are probably on show. Royce excuses himself and goes for a shower, his jeans hanging off his arse to reveal the start of the unsightliness hairy crack. I worry I'm tuning into my mother.

"He's such an interesting guy, isn't he?" says Rosalie. "So creative."

So obviously an idiot, I want to say, but I don't. I couldn't. I mean it's not that he is an evil person, or anything, he just isn't boyfriend material. And Rosalie, more than anyone else I know, could really do with a boyfriend.

* * *

I am getting out of the shower when I hear my mobile. Who could possibly have something important to say at eight a.m?

I get the phone on the fifth ring. "Hello?"

"Bella?"

"Oh it you. Hi Mum," I say, sitting down on my bed. I am only wearing my towel and am dripping wet through.

'Oh, thank god, thank god you're okay," she says breathlessly.

"Why wouldn't I be?" Had there been a national disaster whilst I was in the shower? A bombing, a military coup? A tsunami perhaps?

"I just worry about you, that's all. There's always that part of you when you're a mum, you'll see when you become one! That worries something might have happened in the night." Remembering the near miss, I had last week, I wince at this, and hold the phone away from my head.

Welcome to the world or Renee Swan. Fifty-four happily married to Charlie Swan, two wonderful children, Bella and Seth, the loveliest woman on the earth and pathologically pessimistic, especially when it comes to the safety of her own children. When I was young, she would refuse to let me help her bake a in case I got my hand mangled in the whisks of her electric blender or my jugular slashed through with a bread knife. To cut a long story short, my mother is constantly amazed that at twenty-eight years old, I am still alive. Such is her faith in my ability merely to survive.

"I was just calling you to remind you about your brother's birthday. It's next Monday so mark sure you post a card by Saturday and…"

"Yes mum. Contrary to popular belief, I'm not a complete idiot." I hold my phone between my chin as I attempt to put on knickers. "I'll speak to you soon. Bye! Bye…" I press end call and feel instantly guilty. Poor mum. Living in Seattle, I never seem to have the time for leisurely phone calls with her anymore and sometimes worry she feels jealous that I manage with my dad. It's just, me and my dad have an understanding. Whereas my mum and brother were born with a tendency to gossip and dramatise, to expect the very worst and then delight in going on about it when that prophecy is fulfilled, me and dad have always come at lift rather more sunny-side up: in the belief that everything and everyone is good, until proved otherwise.

* * *

I finally leave the house at 8.40 a.m. thinking I'll just have time, if I'm quick to pop into Clearwater's before catching the bus. Clearwater's is the dry cleaners. The bell sounds as I push the door open. Sue bustles to the front of the shop, a tape measure around her neck. "Bella, my love. What a wonderful start to the day!" she opens her arms, and places an enthusiastic kiss on both cheeks.

"Hi, Sue. Morning Harry!" I shout, peering through the rows of plastic bags to the back of the shop where Sue's husband sits, coffee in hand, reading the newspaper. He raises a hand without looking up.

"Now Angel, what can I do for you?" Sue pins a pink ticket to somebody's jacket and hangs in up on the rail to her right. I hear the doorbell go again and am half aware of a presence beside me.

"It's this shirt," I say, taking the linen shirt out of the bag and laying it out in front of us. "it was in my last lot of dry cleaning but it's not mine, there must have been a mix up."

Sue puts the safety pin she was holding between her teeth and holds it up to the light. "how strange," she says.

"Very strange," says a voice. I recognise it instantly. "I've got the same problem."

Another item of clothing appears on the counter. I stare at the white linen dress in front of me, and then at the hands placed on top of it: tanned big, with slender fingers and round hell-pink nails. I'd know those hand anywhere. I trace the arms, lean, boyish, a perfect covering of fine, black hair and the face, I'm looking at the face. My hand goes to my mouth, my heart starts to race.

"Jacob?!"


	6. Chapter 6

Brown eyes, behind which lie albums and albums of memories of us, are staring at me now, flicking with disbelief. He covers them with his hands. Those oh so familiar hands. "Bella?" he uncovers his eyes again "shit, it is you." He looks at the shirt. "And that's my shirt!"

Sue, prone to fits of giggles at the best of times, is doubled up now, great wheezy laughs. "You know her?!" Her eye as round as gobstoppers. She summons Harry from the back of the shop. "In fifteen years, harry! I've never known… oh! How wonderful!" Harry shuffles forward, puts an arm round his wife and gives a silent, toothy grin in appreciation of the moment.

We exchange clothes – Jacob gives me my white dress, I try to give him his shirt, but my hands are shaking so much that I drop it, at his feet.

"it's okay, I've got it" He bends over and picks it up. When he stands, his face is so close to mine I can see the subtle bumpiness of this morning's shave. Jacob has hardly aged at all. Hairline slightly retreating perhaps, but only to reveal two sun-kissed Vs and some fine laughter lines around those lazy, pretty eyes. I hold his gaze for as long as I can bear, then look away, embarrassed.

"Hey" He says.

"Hi," I say. Then we look at each other, but we're flabbergasted, half laughing, not having the slightest clue what to say. I haven't seen him for five years. Not since that freezing November morning SeaTac airport.

"It really is you" he says eventually.

"I know, I know!" I say, giggling like an idiot wishing I'd at least had time to put some mascara on this morning.

"I can't believe…" he steps back, as if to get a better look at me.

"So how do you two know each other?" Harry hays, flashing us a toothy smile.

Jacob takes hold of one of my hands. He looks at me from under those heavy lids. "She was my girlfriend," he says finally, proudly even. "We went out together for two years. Till I went and fucked it up."

* * *

Jacob and I met in April 2008. All I was doing was lazing about campus with Rosalie, sipping beer out of plastic glasses.

"do you fancy coming to this party?" Rosalie asked one day.

"Yeah totally, what kind of party? Count me in." I Said.

"A garden party," she said. "at my mate Jacob's parents' house. They have one every year."

She said Jacob was studying media studies at university and was a mate from boarding school. I can't say that 'garden party' really got my pulse racing but as with most things involving Rosalie, there were a few surprises in store. For starters, any preconceptions I had about 'parents' and 'garden party' were swiftly eradicated the moment we accelerated up to the main gates in Rosalie's Fiat Punto. There was some kind of French rap music, reverting from their huge sprawling house as we waked up the long gravel path. Huge red and gold lanterns adorned the front of the house. A barefoot, wild haired woman wearing a sequinned waistcoat and holding an enormous glass of red wine ran towards us, arms outstretched. "Welcome" she cried, kissing me and Rosalie on both cheeks. She was Jacobs mum, Sarah as she insisted we call her, something which seemed biologically impossible since she looked about thirty. Sarah and Jacob's dad Billy, had met when he was a student and Sarah was working as a life model. Now a professor in French at the University of Washington, and skulked about the house smoking camel reds. Sarah poured us equally huge glasses of wine. "make yourselves at home," she said, "All my boys are outside."

At that point, a bare-chested young man sauntered into the kitchen, wrapped his arms around Sarah, who was stirring something sweet and spicy on the stove, and kissed her on the cheek. "and this," she said, reaching on the tip of her toes and kissing him back, 2is the most beautiful and most idle one".

I should have let that be my warning, but I fell in love, well it was all-consuming, primeval lust at that point, on the spot.

Jacob was six foot two with closely cropped black hair, sultry dark eyes with languorous lids and an exquisite dimple in his left cheek. He was wearing Levis jeans and white flip flops that showed off the most perfect tanned toes. I remember curling mine, complete with chipped purple nail vanish and the odd unsuccessfully frozen verruca, inside my trainers.

* * *

We're standing outside the dry cleaners now, Sue and Harry still watching from the window. "so, what are you doing now?" Jacob says as it as if we have options.

"Oh work, unfortunately," I say, hoisting myself back down to earth. "and you?"

"Yeah, work," Says Jacob.

"What kind of…?"

"Bar manager.," he says, hands in pockets. "My dad's gutted I'm not a lawyer or a doctor or a fucking philosopher come to think of that that but you know me."

"I know you."

"Never one to do as I'm told."

We shuffle from foot to foot grinning inanely and not knowing quite what to do with ourselves.

"So, how come I've never seen you around her before? I say, wanting to keep him here, not wanting this to end.

"I'm here for now, but not usually. I'm staying at a mate's. So how is work in the big bad world of publishing? Still tragedy correspondent?"

"Tragedy correspondent?"

"Yeah, Rosalie said you earn a living hearing other people's sob stories."

"Cheeky cow!" He backtracks with a smile.

"In a good way."

"Its triumph over tragedy, get it right. Even if they've been taken in by a polyamorous cult, had all their limbs amputated and all their family have been massacred by a crazed gunman, there's always a positive angle. And if there isn't we just make one up."

"Like?"

"Like he didn't like his family anyway. Or his legs come to think of it."

Jacob laughs. I find my face reddening with pleasure.

"I forgot how funny you are." He studies me. "And quite how sexy."

It's a good job we both see a bus trundling towards us at that point, otherwise I might have had to react to that statement and it would, have been idiotic.

"Well, this is me," says Jacob, taking his wallet out of this pocket. "But here, here's my card."

"And here's mine," I say hastily rummaging in my bad and handing over my fuscia pink business card with Believe it's slogan emblazoned all over it: From the touching to the twisted, every single week! Classy.

"Thanks." As Jacob reads the card I see his eyebrows flicker and inwardly cringe. He says, "Just ring the bar, I'm usually there. Well, I come and go."

Like a cat. An elusive cat.

He gives me a kiss on the cheek.

"Bye," he says.

"yeah, bye," I say dumbly.

Then he runs across the road, and I keep watching him. He's almost jogging now. His rucksack over one shoulder, his jacket riding up. Gorgeous arse. Round and perfectly formed and slightly uplifted and filling out those jeans like an arse should. He still makes the blood rush to my nether regions. He still makes my head surge with indecent thoughts.

It's 8.30a.m. barley an hour since I got up, and I am walking to work in broad daylight, wondering how the hell we buggered that one up.


	7. Chapter 7

I walk into work with an astonishingly thirteen minutes to spare. I landed my job at Believe it magazine back in 2011, after I got back from what turned out to be a pretty traumatic year travelling. It may not be the glitziest of jobs, but it's a proper job in journalism, and with stories like 'I lost my nose but still stiffed out love' it was hard not to see in the funny side. The persistent interviewing of people with such shit lives meant you couldn't help but think your own was maybe not that bad. It was the perfect distraction from a broken heart too. A heart broken by Jacob Black.

"Morning Bella"

"Morning Jess" Jess is our receptionist, and from Melbourne in Australia. She has long ash blonde hair that reaches down her mid back. She is loves her body, and always wears the most tightest, most fitted, and most revealing clothing you can imagine.

"May I say Bella, you look fintistic today," she trills, biting into a chocolate croissant. "Off on a date tonight by any chance, met someone nice on the internet again?"

Ever since I made the grave mistake of telling Jess I had a date with a guy I met on a dating website, she has asked me this question on average twice a week.

"No, not tonight Jess," I say, hanging up my coat. "I've gone off men off the internet anyway, all they ever seem to be into is rock climbing and skydiving if their photos are anything to go by."

'Quite right too," says Jess. "I've never been one for adrenaline sports, myself."

Back at my desk I hear Bree busily relaying the latest in the saga of Vegan Boyfriend to someone on the phone. "He won't even kiss me if I've eaten a bacon sandwich, you know," she says proudly, "that's how committed he is."

I try to concentrate but thoughts of Jacob are like a swarm of butterflies in my brain. If I hadn't have been so flighty, if I hadn't a done a Bella special and disappeared around the world, assuming everything would be hunky dory when I got back, maybe we would be together now, in love, married, maybe even a baby on the way. I've got sixteen things on my to-do list, but all I can do is daydream. The fact is, when I look back to my two and half years with Jacob the entire era resonates with a huge WHAT IF. What if I had engaged my head as well as my heart, what if I had not been so naïve, what if I had been thinner, demurer, more exotic. What if, for example, I had not got caught having sex with Jacob Black the very first time I met him, by Mrs Black herself? At her garden party. Maybe it was jinxed from the start.

I blame the sun. That and his generous parents who plied us with an endless flow of alcohol. By three a.m. everyone who was going home had gone and Rosalie has passed out on the sofa-bed in the spare room. So, it was just the two of us talking and drinking at the kitchen table.

"Your mum's so cool," I slurred, nursing about my ninetieth glass of wine.

Jacob laughed. "everyone says that," he said. "and yeah, I suppose she is." Then he paused, then said, "but she's not as cool as you."

That's when he turned to me, took my face in his hands and started kissing me, passionately and urgently. "you're funny," he said.

"Funny?"

"yeah, and kinda sexy, you make me laugh."

I wasn't quite sure what to make of that. But what did it matter anyway? I was snogging a well fit guy.

He reached inside my top and placed his hand on my breast. "Come here, "he whispered, fixing me with eyes that told me how much he wanted me. Then his hand was suddenly in my bra, and he drew me close and we were kissing, harder this time, our tongues exploring each other's mouths hungrily, hot quick breath moist on my skin. He gestured for me to hold my arms up, he removed my top. He removed my bra. And not with a teenage fumble, but in one smooth, masterful stroke, as if he undressed women for a living.

Then, pulling me upwards, never taking his lips from mine, he put his hands around my waist and picked me up, sitting me on the table in front of him. His hands big and warm and as they explored me: my shoulders, my neck, my stomach, the nerves in my groin suddenly sparked into action.

"Should we be doing this?" I looked at him, eyes shining under the table lamp.

"Don't you want to?"

"Yes, yes of course I fucking want to!" I said, which came out far more eager than I anticipated.

"Well that's good then," he said, looking at me.

He swept my hair back from my face, then gently pushed me back onto the table, never diverting from my gaze.

"Stop it!" I giggled. "Your parents might come down"

"So, what," he said, "I don't give a shit."

He undid my jeans and I undid his, my hands trembling, and we were kissing all over each other's faces and necks and he ran his hands through my hair, pushing it back from my face and kissing me again. Then he was flicking his tongue all over my nipples and I was moaning and half laughing at the same time and pulling him into me and we were going at it hammer and tongs over this huge oak table. The lamb above us was creaking slightly with the motion of us.

"What the fuck are you doing?!"

Jacob leapt off me, his erection waving about like a rather awkward third person and pulled up his jeans.

I noted the distinct lack of humour in his mother's voice. Then in her face/ she was standing right in front of us. "it's three a.m. and you have a bedroom to go to, Jesus Jacob, have some respect."

I covered my face with my hands. My stomach churns at the memory. I turn back to my inbox and there it is.

From Jblack - (Email)

To: bella_swan - (Email)

 _I was wondering, now we have our glad rags back, you free tomorrow night?_

I am now!

* * *

I am on my way back from lunch, after reciting the email word for word and relaying the whole dry cleaners' scenario to Jess and Bree and basically the entire office, when I feel the growling vibration of a text message in my pocket. It's Edward.

 **B, Jared. House party tomorrow. Keep it Free. E**

Presumptuous of what! Now I get my own back I text:

 **E Sorry, no can do, have a hot date with the sexy ex. Ha! Kiss that! One all. I do have a social life of my own, you know. B**

My phone rings immediately. 'Edward' Flashes up.

"Oh, now that is lame," he says.

"Come again?"

"Resurrecting an old boyfriend. I don't think that counts."

"Sorry, I didn't realize this was a competition!" I laugh.

"You started it. You're the one who said, 'one all'."

"It's a date, isn't it?" I say. "he's a bloke, isn't he? He fancies me, I fancy him, what's not to lie?'

"Fine, it's just, you know, take your good friend Edward for example. Not one to resort to dredging up old flames when in need of a bit of excitement, I travelled far and wide for romance."

"Whatever."

"The point is, I thought you hated Jacob?"

"What makes you think it's Jacob?! I know it's hard to believe but I have had other boyfriends, you know."

"Not ones you'd call your 'sexy' ex, you haven't."

I protest but Edward's right. I would not call any of my other exes my sexy ex. Not because they weren't sexy at all (I like to think I have standards in life) but because Jacob was THE sexy ex. The one. Or as near as damned as I've ever been to it.

"Anyway," I continue, feeling ever so slightly triumphant, that Edward has even thought about my past relationships enough to make this observation, "I never said I hated him." Did I? He broke my heart; I was upset for a while. Ok, maybe I hated his guts for a while, but I never actually hated him. "We were young, I expected too much. That was like, seven thousand years ago anyway. Give the guy a break."

"I've got nothing against Jacob," protests Edward. "it was you that he upset, or have you forgotten the night you got back from travelling and demanded I cam round, having drunk a bottle of wine in about half a hour feeling practically suicidal? What makes you think he's changed is all I'm saying?"

"It's just a date Edward, he didn't ask me to marry him."

" that's OK then," says Edward, cheerily now. "Have a good time."

I hang up, walk back to work smiling to myself. Edward is really weird sometimes.

I text Rosalie 'how's the evil hangover?' And look at my watch: 1.52 p.m. There's eight minutes till lunch officially ends. Still, a lot can happen in eight whole minutes. I go to the ladies and then, I don't know why, perhaps it's women's instinct that draws my attention just to then, to something in my bag. Shimmering among tickets and leaflets about events I know I will never get around to attending, the blue wrapper containing the other pregnancy test from the pack of two I bought glints at me from the bottom of my bag. I'm not pregnant, I can't be, I had a negative test. But it cost me 20 dollars and I really don't like waste. And so, I go into the cubicle and get it out. It's less of a conscious decision, more of a cleaning up exercise. I wee on the little stick and balance it on the top of the toilet roll holder, not thinking, just doing. Then I set the timer on my watch for two minutes.

1.50

This is ridiculous, I've even got PMT: sore boobs, tired, short fuse, the works.

1.30

No period though and that's a fact, I'm a week late; I'm never a week late.

1.00

I am stressed though, that's also a face and I bet two seconds after doing this negative test, I'll come on.

0.45

I glace at the test, yep, just as I thought.

0.30

Two lines emerging, God, I hate wasting money, especially due to paranoia.

0.25

Misplaced, neurotic, paranoia.

0.14

I pick up the test and tear off some toilet roll – I'm wrapping it up now, to throw it in the bin

0.10

But then the light catches it – the breath catches in my throat.

0.08

It can't be, can it? Can it? Oh my god! Tell me it can't

0.06

I feel like I might throw up, I swallow, take a deep breath, exhale slowly, then look at it again.

0.04

But it's still there.

It's still there…

A cross, a bright blue fucking cross! I'M PREGNANT! I'M FUCKING PREGNANT! And I can hardly breathe, I can't get my breath. Help me, my lungs won't expand, and all I'm aware of, apart from this sensation is a great surging, flooding of blood to my head…

If it wasn't suddenly rush hour in the toilets, I might be making much more noise by now. But I can hear someone in the cubicle next to me, blowing their nose, and I know she does that in her own special way – that I know its Bree, so I don't, I don't make a sound. I just stay where I am, hand clasped over my mouth, my world having just shifted on its axis, and me hanging off the side by one fingernail.

My first concern is that I must have picked whatever is there, if it really is there, by the alcohol consumed last night, the sambucas, the drugs. Shit, the drugs! I has a spliff with Rosalie last night and I am overcome with a murderous guilt, a guilt I am wholly and completely unprepared for. And then come the shock, it hits me like a wall. Shock, guilt, shock, what the hell do I feel? The emotions seem to thrash over me, like merciless ice-cold waves, pinning me to the back of the toilet door and stealing my breath.

There's the sound of flushing next door, the taps running, the creak of the door as it shuts. I'm feeling a whole scope of emotions now but what are they? Am I happy? Is this elation I'm feeling? Or is it horror? I don't know. I can't think.

I hold the test in my hand, my breathing shaky, my palms moist, and suddenly I'm very angry. Angry that the other test lied to me, even angrier for doing this – getting pregnant in the first place, and now I'm angry at myself for handling this so badly.

I have to speak to Edward. Now.

Outside, everything looks different, as if I'm looking at it for the first time. It's raining, so I run, clutching my phone, to the doorway of a recruitment company at the end of the road. My hands are shaking as I find Edward's number. I'm pregnant, I'm fucking pregnant.

It rings and rings and then he finally picks up.

"Hello."


	8. Chapter 8

His voice sounds muffled, sleepy almost.

"Edward, it's me again."

"I know. Listen can I ring you back?" he whispers. I hear a woman cough.

Oh brilliant, Irina's there. I am phoning him to tell him I'm carrying his child, and his fuck buddy is in his bed on one of her spontaneous visits to Seattle, almost definitely naked. I met her once. 'You should get together with? Bella, she's adorable.' She apparently said to Edward afterwards. I have nothing against her. I really couldn't care less if she was in his bed four times a year, but now? 'Fucks sake Edward!' I want to say, but I can't, because it's not his fault. I mean I know it takes two to tango and all that, and I can't start going all jealous wannabe girlfriend on him now. It's just stood here, his DNA fusing with mine, its slightly bad taste, that's all.

And so, I say, "it's really pretty important. I do need to speak to you. Now."

"Ok, hang on," he says, and there's a few seconds where he obviously explains he must take the call.

I can picture him now. He is getting out of bed, hair sticking up, skinny legs making for the door, holding his privates.

"So, what's wrong? hey?"

The concern in his voice makes me well up, my voice starts to wobble.

"I am pregnant after all."

Silence. He swallows.

"What do you mean? You did a test, it was negative."

"I did another, it was positive."

"How do you know?"

"There's a cross."

"What sort of cross?"

"A blue one."

A pause. Just the sound of breathing.

"Are you sure you've read the instructions properly?"

"Yes. I'm sure, I'm not that stupid."

There's another silence and then he speaks again, there's a tone to his voice I've never heard before.

"It is mine?" he says softly. And as the tears finally fall, and I say "Yes, yes of course its fucking yours," I realise that tone in his voice, was hope.

* * *

We arrange to meet up after work; I'll bring the test, so he can see it for himself. I put the phone down and walk back to the office, under a cloud. I imagine that everyone I pass can see inside my womb, red and illuminated. And I have never felt so extraordinary in my entire life.

I rush to my desk, the email's there. I didn't send it. Thank fuck I didn't send it!

To: Jblack

 _Yes I'm Free._

I press delete.

* * *

By some miracle, I make it through the rest of the day, the sun sinking by the time I meet Edward. Hess sitting on a bench, his legs stretched out in front of him and he's carrying a bunch of freesias with foil wrapped around the stems.

He looks up when I say hello and squints into the light.

"These are for you," he says holding out the flowers. They smell amazing. "I'm sorry about before."

"About what?"

"For being in bed with Irina when you rang to tell me you're pregnant? I feel awful."

"Don't worry, honestly I've forgotten already."

I sit down beside him. The evening sun flickers like embers on the river in front of us. "Anyway," I say. "Look at this."

I undo the front pocket of my bag, take out the test and hand it to him. Her unwraps it, looks at me, squeezes my thigh, then holds up the test to the light.

"Hmm, there's definitely a cross there isn't there?"

"Really? Oh god, I was hoping… Do you think?"

The reality hits me, there's not getting away from this now. I burst into tears, tears of pure shock.

"Sorry," I say, "I just don't know what to do. I cannot believe this is happening, what are we going to do?"

Edward rubs his face with his hands then puts an arm around me and we don't say anything for a while. Then Edward says, "I don't know. But whatever happens, I'm here for you."

* * *

There never really was any question of whether I was going to keep the baby in reality.

"It's your decision," Edward said, "I'll stand by you, whatever you decide."

I had already made my decision. The decision was made the moment the blue cross emerged. If I was eighteen, I wouldn't think twice, I'd have an abortion. But I am twenty eight, a grown woman and besides, the way things are going lately, Jacobs showing up out of the blue and now this, the second earth shattering even of the year and it's only April, half of me wonders whether life is trying to tell me something and I should sit up and listen.

"I want to keep it," I say. And even though I mean it, I still want to eat the words as soon as they have left my mouth.

"You do?" Edward, stops, turns and looks at me. He looks… What is that look?... Delighted?!And for a fleeting second, I think what a brilliant dad he'll make and maybe, just maybe this isn't so terrible after all.

"Yes," I say looking at him. "It's scary as hell but I do. I mean, it's not sunk in yet, and this isn't conventional. It's utterly insane! But…"

"But what?" I think.

"But to have an abortion would feel like the coward's way out," I say, and for that moment I really believe what I'm saying. "It would feel like not choosing life. Not just literally in terms of the baby, but for me, for us."

Edward gets hold of my hand. The wind is blowing our hair sideways, making our eyes sting.

"I agree, Bella, it's alright, I agree…" He says beaming at me now.

"And the main reason," I add.

"What's the main reason?" Edward asks.

"In the future, the years to come, I couldn't deal with what could have happened, you know?"

"I know, I know."

"I couldn't deal with what might have been."

* * *

I could tell Edward was secretly delighted by the fact he shot, and he scored. But I also knew, despite his usual optimism, that he was freaked out beyond belief. The days that followed were totally surreal. We were both, we still are, in a state of shock and took to calling each other sometimes three times a day with phone calls that went a bit like this.

Me: Hello

Edward: Hello

Long Pause

Edward: How are you feeling?

Me: Weird. How are you feeling?

Edward: Yeah, Weird.

Long Pause

Edward: I'm going to be a dad, I can't believe it.

Me: You can't believe it!? Try being the one who's got to carry the thing for nine months.

Edward: I thought I wouldn't be able to have kids though, that I'd have killed all my strong swimmers with all the alcohol I've drank.

Me: Well you can and its true

Edward: I know, I just can't believe it though, it's like it's happening to someone else.

* * *

Me and Edward are at the local bookstore. I lean against the bookshelf leafing through a book called _Bundle of Joy: 101 Real stories of Motherhood_ as if I do this every day, as if I do belong to this weird species, milling around the shop floor, hand in hand: 'The Expectants.'

But I am not expectant. At no point did I ever expect this! When that positive test emerged, it was categorically the most unexpected thing I have ever experienced in my life. Things like this don't happen to me, they happen to the people I interview. My life has been one big cushy ride so far, which is why I've always blagged it when it comes to taking precautions against life's eventualities. After all, the less stuff happens to you, the less you think it will, don't you?

Some would say I'm reckless. I would say I've always been relaxed, optimistic. OK, I admit it, veering towards winging it and hoping for the best. And yet, here I am, and the thing that's caught me most off guard, aside from the stampede of hormones currently taking over my body like an occupying army, is that I've been caught out. My winging it wings are out of fuel; my cat's nine lives are all used up. Game's over Bella Swan. You've officially fucked up.

It's late afternoon, ten past five, and the sun is pouring in through the floor-length window. In the bookshop café to my right, there's a clatter of mugs, normal people getting on with their normal lives. Two aisles in front, I can just see Edward's head buried in a book, and I am immediately transported back to the day we met. He was stood like that then too, the first time I saw him, in the library, head buried in a book bathed in the autumn sun.

I remember thinking. Just as I do now, he looked a bit vacant with those full lips hanging slightly open. But I liked his slim, defined face too, this guy with the hair that had its own mind.

I squint to read the title of the book Edward's reading: _You're Pregnant Too Mate! The Essential Guide for Expectant Fathers._ And I have a sudden inexplicable urge to blow out the brains of the author. He's been reading it since we got here. Don't ask me how we got here either, it wasn't a conscious decision. One minute we were buying his mum a present for her birthday. The next, we'd wandered in here, on auto-pilot really, me looking as shell shocked as if I'd emerged from a national disaster, a look I've been sporting for more than a week now.

I go back to my book, but the words start to blur, I can't concentrate. Everything in here is too loud, too bright. Ever since we decided we were defiantly going ahead with this, the whole world has felt like this: like I've woken up in a different one. I go home, I watch Tv with Rosalie, I do everything I've always done, and yet it doesn't feel like me doing it. It's like someone have hijacked my body. Someone pregnant.

"Hey, listen to this," says Edward, leaning over the bookshelf. "It says here that at six week pregnant, your baby is the size of a shrimp, how cool is that?"

"Right, yes, very cool," I say, trying to sound enthusiastic. "Although I don't much fancy the idea of a sea creature setting up home in my body."

"Right," nods Edward and goes back to his book.

"A shrimp," he mumbles when I don't say anything else. "Maybe that what we can call it, 'Shrimpy'."

"Edward, shut up," I mumble. I feel bad for being so moody. I can't help it though. In less than a fortnight, we seem to have gone from best mates, two people who actually have fun, to me weeping at not being able to work the tin opener.

Edward sidles off to the other side of the bookshelf, taking his book and dragging his feet in mock rejection. I bite my lip. I feel awful.

The fact that Edward seems to be taking this so well isn't helping. Despite the shock, ever since we found out, it's weird, he's had this look on this face; a look of boy like wonder that says, 'I've just got the best surprise of my life.' But me? I don't feel like that. I don't even know how I feel.

Both Alice and Rosalie must know something's up though. I've refused wine for three nights at home. I told Rosalie I've got cystitis, but I don't think she's buying it. 'Cystitis?' she said. 'Likely story. You must be pregnant.' She was joking, but I nearly fell off my chair. Plus, when Alice called me at work the other day, my voice was doing strange things. 'What's up with you?' she said. 'What's happened? You can tell me.' I'm pregnant I wanted to shout, but I promised Edward I'd wait until the twelve-week scan before I went telling everyone. In that typical male way, he likes to do things that don't concern him by the book but I'm not sure I can wait that long.

I pick up another book, 'Your partner's pregnancy may mean that you both rethink your domestic situation,' it says. 'It is common for partners co-habiting and expecting a child to decide this time is right to get hitched.'

Right. But was it common for those 'partners' to be friends and not lovers? Was it common for them not to be co-habiting, or ever likely to be? Should we. After all, be rethinking our domestic situation and just get hitched anyway? Where were the rules for us? The top tips for us? I didn't need _My Best Friend's Guide to Pregnancy,_ I needed, _Help! I'm Pregnant, and it's my Best Friend's!_

I look around me; the place is swarming with couples, the men protective of their girlfriends and wives who house the offspring that soon will make their nuclear, normal families. I look at Edward, still nose in his book. What were we? A pair of frauds.

I decide to take the _Bundle of Joy._ I figure some real-life tales may help with the denial. I go to the till and stand in the queue of couples, two-by-two, Noah's fucking Ark.

I'm aware that my heart is beating but it's only when I feel Edward's hand on my shoulder, then his arm around my back that I realise I'm crying, again, that tears are rolling down my face and the woman at the till, is staring at me.

"Come on," says Edward, softly, stepping in front of a sea of staring faces and paying for the book. "I've got an idea. Let's go to Aro's."


	9. Chapter 9

Aro's is an old jazz club. Edward and I stumbled upon it a couple of years ago, a night that ended up with us dancing ourselves sober to a swing band. It became our place after that. But I don't want to go now. Aro's won't make this any better.

"I dunno," I say, "I'm just not sure I'm in the mood."

We go anyway, after all I'm not in the mood for anything. It's only just gone 6.30 p.m. by the time we arrive and thankfully it's almost empty.

We sit at the bar sipping on Shirley temples which makes me want to laugh and cry all at the same time. Laugh because Edward is sipping on a drink with a cherry and an umbrella in it, as a show of solidarity, when really, he'd kill for real drink, and cry because why did we have drink with umbrella and cherries in anyway? It didn't feel like we were celebrating.

"Sorry, I'm a mess, I don't know what's wrong with me," I say, forcing a smile.

"Hey, come on," says Edward, dragging his stool closer, "Look at me., I'm scared too you know." He takes my hands in his, trying to ignore the snail trail of snot up on side where I've wiped my nose. "I'm scared shitless to be honest."

"But you seem…you're amazing…you're just handling this so well, so much better than me. It's like you're, I don't know, happy about it all," I say.

He thinks about this, clears his throat. "Well, I'm definitely not unhappy about it. I'm thirty Bella. I don't want to end up some sad old bachelor boy, no children, no life, answering the door in my boxers."

"You do that already."

"Oh. So I do."

The barman places a bowl of peanuts on the bar which only makes me want to cry some more. Mainly because I can't have one. No peanuts, Dr Littlesea said. I can't even have a stupid peanut.

"Give it time," Edward says, "It's so early."

"I know, it's just, I can't help feeling this has fucked everything up. You could have met someone else, got married, done it properly, we both could have. But things are going to be much more complicated now."

I lean back in my chair and squeeze my eyes shut. Every time I think of one consequence of all this, another rears its head.

"But I was never after a wife, Bella, you know that," says Edward, making me look at him. "All that wedding, two point four kids conventional thing was never something I dreamt of."

I look at the floor.

"But I did, Edward," I say, looking up at him. "I did dream of that."

An unpleasant silence. Edward stares at his drink. It's only as the words leave my mouth that I realise how true they are. I had it all planned. I had it all filed under 'goes without saying'. Meeting 'The One', the white wedding, the mortgage and the ceremonious last pill as we give up on drinking in preparation of our forthcoming child. The Sex, as we'd take to our bed on sun-drenched afternoons. The leaping into each other's arms with joy at the positive test and the first scan on dad-to-be's phone. And who is that dad-to-be in my mind's eye? Not Edward, my friend, the man I love platonically but I hadn't even considered casting for this role. No, that man I imagined, before this whole 'life plan' went utterly to shit was Jacob. But I let him slip through my hands, just like fine golden sand, like play on a potter's wheel. Like life itself.

'This is so ludicrous," I say suddenly.

"What is?"

"This. Us."

My cheeks burn. I don't want to go on like this, but I've opened the floodgates now and it's all coming out.

"What do you mean?"

"People don't do this, Edward. Have a baby with their friend. We're not a couple, are we?"

Edward closes his eyes and groans.

"We were never actually an item. You're a grown man, a teacher, a responsibly person, apparently," I hate myself now, it's not his fault. "What sort of thirty-year-old man doesn't even have a condom?"

Edward snorts. "What?"

"A condom Edward, you know, a contraceptive?"

He blinks and splutters, disbelieving at this last comment.

"It takes two to tango Bella and anyway you were drunk."

"We both were!"

"And you were wearing that underwear. Frilly and black. I mean, they were hardly a contraceptive."

He's gone crazy.

"And so, what?! So this was bound to happen? The face I favour vaguely attractive underwear over enormous belly-warmers was one day destined to get me knocked up? In case you've forgotten, you were in bed with another woman when I called to tell you I was pregnant."

"You've never said that bothered you," Edward says. "If you had…"

"It doesn't bother me. That's the problem!" I say, throwing my hands in the air. "Don't you think it should? Don't you think it should bother me, just a bit, that the father of my baby is fucking someone else?!"

The barman clears his throat, loudly. A party of businessmen have just gathered at the bar.

Edward's got his head in his hands now.

"But don't you understand, this isn't about us anymore," he says quietly. "It's about this baby, a baby that needs us, more than anything now. There's thousands of women who can't even get pregnant, have you thought about that?"

I had actually, and loathed myself for being so ungrateful but I couldn't help myself.

"Forgive me," I say. "But I'm not feeling my most charitable right now."

"I can see that," says Edward, standing up and getting his coat. We leave, go home. Our separate homes.

* * *

Rosalie leans back on the window of the café, fold her arms and groans.

"I suppose you're thinking, 'told you so'?" she says, through half-shut eyes. "I suppose everyone saw it coming but me."

I put my hand of her arm. "No," I say, but I don't say anything else. I know the drill.

It's been almost a fortnight since Royce dumped her, by the cruel form of text, half an hour before she was due to meet him at a party, and she's still in self-loathing mode. This means she doesn't want my sympathy or my analysis of what went wrong, she just wants me to be her punch-bag whilst she lets it all out.

It's Sunday and this was the day I was going to tell Rosalie about the baby. I intended to wait until the scan like I promised Edward, but she already knows, I swear. She found my book, the Bundle of Joy book, you don't get much more incriminating than that. I came home from work to find her reading it in the kitchen, sneering at all the pictures of women cradling their bumps.

Rosalie is not what you'd call baby-friendly. In face to be perfectly honest, she's actively anti-baby. She and Alice used to be best mates, we all did. But since Alice and Jasper eighteen months ago, went to the other side, as Rosalie sees it, their relationship has defiantly suffered. Rosalie treats Ali like she's holding a bomb when she's holding Sophia and when Alice relayed the story of her horrific birth, Rosalie was sick in her mouth. So, I wasn't surprised in the slightest at her reaction to the book. It was only when her face fell, and she said… "oh my god, is this yours?" that's I went a deathly shade of pale.

"I'm doing a health piece on pregnancy, it's for research," I lied, sticking my head inside the fridge.

This was the weekend I was to spill the beans, but so far, it's not looking good. When things don't work out between Rosalie and men, which tends to be the norm rather than the exception, there's a set process, a series of 'modes' to be gone through, each one having it be exhausted before the next can begin.

Up until this point, for example, she's been very much in hurt mode. I got home from the cinema to find her chain-smoking in the garden, looking like she's suffered some kind of anaphylactic shock her face was so swollen from crying. She was so upset she accepted a hug and that's saying something.

The café's emptying now, half eaten breakfasts left on its round mahogany tables with the retro tablecloths. Used coffee mugs are piled high. I zone back to Rosalie, her fighter mode's at full throttle now, her mind churning over the last week's events, scouring for evidence of when the demise began.

"I wouldn't fucking mind," she says, downing an espresso, "but only last week he was going on about how he was really falling for me. How I was the most intelligent women he ever met, ha! What a load of shit. So intelligent I can't see what's right in front of my eye half the time. A total A-grade cunt."

I bite my lip and stare at the floor. It's always slightly embarrassing when Rosalie starts on one like this, especially in a public place. Very audibly.

"Don't torture yourself, it's best you found out now that he was a shit. Imagine if you were really into him and he found out. You'd be well fucked off."

"Guess so," she mumbles. "His loss not mine and all that. Anyway, I've had it up to her with guys, I reckon I'm better off single. I mean, what's wrong with me? Do I have 'I only date idiots,' written across my forehead?"

The face is, Rosalie's always gone for men who are destined to let her down. She did have a decent boyfriend once, Paul Lahote, all the way though university. But Paul's doting just did her head in the end, she had to put him out of his misery, the morning after graduation ball just to add insult to injury, poor guy. Ever since then she's been in search of someone more exciting, someone edgy. Mr so-called Perfect.

The problem is that if a thirty-five-year-old man's key qualities are that he is edgy and exciting, then chances are commitment and unconditional love are not likely to be his forte. But Rosalie hasn't quite grasped this.

The windows of the café are all streamed up from the persistent Seattle rain. IT's only two p.m. but it feels much later, probably because we got here two hours ago. Since then, we've drunk two lattes, an espresso and a cup of tea between us and seen whole seating arrive, eat and leave.

Through all this time, Rosalie has barley drawn breath whilst I've nodded and ummed and generally kept my mouth shut for so long, we've worked up an appetite worthy of an all-day breakfast.

I don't mind, this won't last for ever. After a day or so, this rant mode will subside, making way for a brief period of calm and self-reflection. This will move seamlessly into mild euphoria as Rosalie embraces her new-found single status, a period which usually finds her dragging me out to hideous speed-dating nights, until she finds herself another totally unsuitable man, at which point I'll be largely redundant.

"Do you know what really annoys me?" she says.

"I spent a hundred and thirty dollars on my dress to wear to that party of his."

"Can't you just take it back?"

"Possibly, but it's the principle of the matter Bella," she snaps, "the face I went and wasted my own money, just to please him! Look at us, eh? pair of total idiots."

"Speak for yourself!" I laugh. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I don't mean anything bad by it," she shrugs. "I just mean, you know, look at us."

"Look at what?"

"Our lives, I suppose, look at our lives. We're in our late twenties, prime of our lives, humorous, gifted, overwhelmingly gorgeous…"

"Now you're talking."

"Exactly. And can either of us get it together to find a boyfriend? Can we fuck."

I try to think of something positive to say, but all I can think about is the wave of nausea currently washing over me. I wish Rosalie would stop talking.

She doesn't.

"I mean look at you and Edward. That was never going to work."

She says this nonchalantly, but I flinch.

"I really like Edward, you know, despite his obvious shortcomings…"

What were they?!

"… and I think he's mad for not snapping you up. But it would have happened by now if it was going to happen. You need to stop messing around, you two, find the real thing. I always thought you and Jacob would go the distance, if he hadn't messed it up, that is. You two were so cool together. You were just too young."

I feel the colour drain from my face. Should I have gone on the date? Should I have emailed back anyway? Maybe I am selling Jacob short assuming he'd never want to date me because I'm pregnant? He is a grown man, he can make his own decisions, after all.

"And then there's me," Rosalie does on, "not a fucking clue what's good for me. I thought Royce was great, so different from anyone else I've ever gone out with. Thank God we're got each other eh? Who'd have thought we'd be still living together now."

Rosalie's on a roll now but I'm not listening, I suddenly feel vert, very sick. If I keep quiet, I'll be okay. If I just concentrate, this nausea will pass right?

Wrong.

The adrenaline rushes through my veins, my cheeks suddenly burn, my mouth fills with liquid, I'm going to throw up.

"Bella, what's wrong? Are you alright?" I hear Rosalie say, but it's too late.

I stand up, throwing my chair behind me. I make a dash for the door. I grab hold of the handle of the door, fling it open, lurch onto the pavement and… let's just say it's not pretty. I hear Rosalie swear from inside the café, then rush outside.

"Fuck Bella," she says to me, "What brought that on?"

"Who knows," I say, wiping away the tears. "Probably just some twenty-four-hour bug."

* * *

The nausea passes as quickly as it came. After a glass of water drunk shakily and some baby wipes donated by a glamorous mother.

"You scared me then," Rosalie says. "Why the hell didn't you tell me to shut up?"

"Easier said than done," I say.

"True," she says, "Sorry about that."

By the time we make it home, the bottoms of our jeans are soaking wet and it feels like we'll never get warm. I go change whilst Rosalie puts the kettle on, turns up the central heating on.

I want to tell her. I'm burning to tell her, so I won't have to handle this alone and yet, I want to savour this moment, hold it forever. Never again, when I've told her, will we stand in this kitchen as two, single childless friends with nothing but ourselves and the rain battering the roof for company.

"Gina," I say. MY heart throws a punch at my rib.

She leaps to her feet. Shit, this is it!

"I know, we'd better get on with it. Which one shall we watch? "she says, marching over to the bag of DVDs.

I think about my promise to Edward, how we said we'd wait until after the scan to tell anyone… but the words are too big, they don't fit my mouth any more, out they topple like I've got Tourette's.

"Rose," I say "I'm pregnant. I'm having a baby."


	10. Chapter 10

If I thought Rose was going to take this well, I was incorrect, profoundly incorrect. I'm not prepared for the look on her face when she turns around. Shock is not the word. Something like repulsion would be more fitting. She doesn't say anything for what seems like ages. She just sits there, DVD in hand, and glares at me.

"What?" she says, through gritted teeth. It's barely audible, a whisper.

"I'm pregnant."

"Whose…?"

"It's Edwards," I say, staring at the floor.

She looks at me though a gap in her fingers.

"How pregnant are you?"

"Eight and a half weeks."

"And you didn't tell me?!"

"Well can you blame me?" I say. "Look at your reaction."

"But Bella, you're not even with Edward, you don't even love him like that. You're not in love, either of you!"

The words sting. Didn't she think I already knew that? And didn't she think I wished it was different?

"I do know that," I say, quietly. "But it's happened now, and we're decided we're keeping the baby."

"What?" says Rose, half laughing, half crying. I retreat further back into the sofa.

"But you can't," she says, "that's ludicrous; you can't have that baby, not like this."

"Who says?" I say, crying now. "Why is that so wrong? We're both adults, this is not some teenage pregnancy. If I was to opt out of having this baby then I'd be opting out of life, choosing the easy way out, can't you see?"

Rose wipes her face, which is suddenly filled with tough determination.

"Look," she says, coming to sit beside me. "We have options; let's think about this. Because this isn't about Edward, or the baby, it's not even a baby yet, Bella, that's what Paul told me when I had my abortion and he was right, it was just a cluster of cells, the only person this is about is you. You have to be selfish."

"But I am being selfish, I want to keep it."

"You don't mean that."

"I do!"

I can't believe I'm hearing this. I know this is a shock and that I'm an idiot for letting it happen but what happened to my friend just giving me a hug, asking all those questions you're meant to ask when someone tells you they're pregnant?

"I'll come with you to the doctor's tomorrow," says Rose, decisively. "I'll call in sick, we'll sort this out. I've been through it too remember, so I know how it feels, I'll know what to say…"

"No," I say, standing up. And it feels like I've never meant anything more in my life. "No! You don't know what to say. I'm not going to the doctor's, I've already been and that was to get my due date. December 14th if you're interested, put it in your diary. I'm not having an abortion, Rose, I'm keeping the baby, we're keeping the baby."

I walk out. I slam the door shut.

* * *

I am lying next to Edward, my belly against the curve of his back, the faint buzz of a dawn flight outside. After the row with Rose yesterday, the atmosphere in the house was frosty to say the least so that evening I came here, to Edward's place.

It been over a week since the row in Aro's and I was worried how I might be received.

I needn't have been.

When Edward opened the door, wearing his dressing gown I have never felt so welcome, or wanted to hug him so much in my life.

"Hello, you," he said, arms crossed, head leaning against the doorframe as if he was expecting me. "Come on in."

He leads me through his narrow, bright hallway. Edward's downstairs is open plan. The lounge is cosy in it make-do-ness. Two stripy sofas covered in dark grey throws, a huge black and white circular rug and a bobbly green swivel chair that he always does his marking on. Today there's a huge pile of marking on the sofa that he's obviously just put to one side. He moved it, putting on the coffee table along with the TV remote control. Then he pressed down on my shoulders, sitting me on the sofa, and went into the kitchen to make coffee.

It's a man's kitchen, a dazzling array of unnecessary gadgets, juicer, pasta maker, ice cream maker, DeLonghi coffee maker that weighs a tonne.

Edward handed me a cup of coffee. "So," he said, "what owes me this pleasure?"

That was it, I was off. I poured out all the details of the showdown with Rose and the more I said it aloud the more unbelievable it felt.

"I'm sorry for being such a bitch last week," I said, shamefacedly, when I'd off loaded. "Not to mention blabbing to Rose. You must hate me."

"Yeah, can't stand you, hate your guts," Edward said, totally dead pan. "You were a bitch from hell, but we'll blame it on the hormones, shall we?"

It must have been one a.m. before we went to bed. I was still pretty shook up about Rose, and Edward was as confused as I was. "Are you sure that's what she said?" he said. "I know Rose can be unpredictable but that's just weird."

"I know, I don't understand it either. It was like me being pregnant was a personal attack. Like something I'd done wrong. I mean, I know I can't get drunk like we used to, but I'm still me, aren't I? I'm still the person she's been friends with for more than a decade."

Edward gave me a hug. It felt like he could squeeze the air right out of me.

"It will be alright, you know, all this," he said, staring straight ahead, with that certainty he has about everything. "I know it doesn't seem like it now, but it will."

"And Rose?" I asked tentatively, as we walked up the stairs to bed.

"She'll some around." Edward yawned. "And if she doesn't, we'll kick her ass."

I smiled but at the back of my mind I was still worried. How could I confide in her about anything now? And what if everyone, even Alice, reacted as badly? What if I was utterly deluded and keeping this baby was the worst, most irresponsible idea in the world?

"All a baby needs is love," Edward said. I play those words in my head again and again. "All a child needs is to feel wanted." And I want this baby. If I don't, why do I wake up, my heart in my mouth with every twinge, petrified this is the start of losing it? The fact is, I think to myself as I lay here, if I was to lose this baby now, we wouldn't try for another. Not like real couples.

It is one thing to have an accident and make the best of a less than ideal situation but quiet another to make something happen again that should never have happened in the first place.

This unborn child that already has fingers and toes and maybe my curviness and Edward's long legs is a fluke, it slipped through the net. And so, if fate decided it wasn't meant to be then it would be heart-breaking, but we'd have to accept it. Why did the thought of this terrify me so much?

Edward is sleeping but I can't, my mind won't let me. I know it must be almost morning because I can just about make out shapes in his familiar room in the emerging light and the photograph on his bedside table, the one in the red frame that's never meant much before, is staring right back at me now, making my mind race.

Me, Edward, Rose and Alice sitting on a bench at La Push last summer. Edward and I had been hopping into each other's bed when the fancy took us for three months by then. How many times have I looked at this picture? And it never stirred much more than nostalgia before. But now the body language says it all. Me, feet tucked up by my ass, my head on Edward's shoulder but what's he doing? Ruffling my hair. Not a spark of sexual tension between us.

That didn't stop me getting carried away though. It didn't stop me thinking that I might be even falling in love with Edward, that he might, even, be falling for me.

I still cringe when I think of what happened a few hours after the photo was taken. We'd been to the bar that night, then walked home, arm in arm. I crawled in bed next to him.

"Edward, we've been doing this weird on/off thing for some time now," I said, my heart pounding. "Maybe we should, you know, make a go of it. Go out with each other, like properly." After a long pause in which I wondered whether he might be about to express his undying love for me, he just turned over the other way.

"Bella, you're drunk," he said flatly. "We're soul-mates, something special, something really good. Let's not spoil it."

What an idiot! What an absolute bastard! So, I open myself up, put myself on the line and he makes me feel so small I could disappear up his ass, along with his own head. Well fuck you, I thought. But I didn't say anything, I was too mortified.

But he was right of course. Thank god somebody saw sense. Looking at us, I cannot believe I did that. I didn't fancy Edward as much as he didn't fancy me, not really, not in the right way. It was all just wishful thinking.

And the hard fact to swallow is, if I hadn't screwed it up with Jacob, I would probably never have even been there, I would never have made an ass of myself, I would never have carried on having 'no-strings' sex with Edward and I certainly wouldn't be pregnant with his baby!

Under Edward's duvet, I can feel that he's had got an erection. Ordinarily, that's to say pre-baby, this would have meant one thing to me, a quickie, sleepy, hungover sex that would have left me with the smug feeling that I really was a thoroughly modern girl. I occasionally slept with my male best friend and we were cool with it.

Today though, it's an unwelcome pressure and I feel my body stiffen as he eases closer. He takes a sleepy breath in as he breathes out, he kneads the inside of my thigh with his knee, trying to gently prize me open. I resist. I can't do this. My head's too muddled and weighed down. Where sex before was like an added extra, now it is loaded with meaning. It is as if the lightness had been shot out of it, leaving it withering to the floor like a deflated balloon.

Edward puts his arm around me.

"Morning," he murmurs, then kisses my head, then slips his hand between my legs.

I gently remove it.

"Edward," I say, pushing him gently off me, trying not to sound too annoyed. "Edward, look… I can't, I'm sorry."

He rolls onto his back and for what seems like forever he doesn't say anything.

When he speaks again, he sounds almost sad.

"It's different now, isn't it?" he says.

"Yes," I say. "I guess it is."

He reaches for my hand, strokes it for a second or two and then turns onto his side. "Come on," he says, pressing his warm, long body against me. "Let's just have a cuddle."

* * *

We must have eventually drifted off, because when I wake up again, it's 7.10 a.m. and Edward isn't in the bed. I sit up and hear the shower going.

I like waking up in Edward's flat. Like everything in his life, his car, his beloved books, his friends, he got it a long time ago, nurtured it, tended it lovingly and it's served him well in return.

Edward has always had to look after things, because he's never known when anything new or better will come along. He was fifteen when his alky waster of a dad walked out, leaving only his mum's income from her part time job as a school nurse to support the family, and so he and his sister Leah never got much.

Edward walks back into the bedroom, still dripping wet, wearing nothing but a teeny towel. He pulls open the curtains to reveal yet another grey May day, and stands in front of his mirror, examining his stubble. He lifts up one arm at a time, spraying deodorant flamboyantly.

I look at him now, his back to me, in just his boxers shorts, putting on his shirt. He certainly not Adonis, but there is something, I don't know, generically pleasant about him. He is nicely proportioned, long of leg, a regal neck, nice strong back and lean arms. Across his shoulders he has a scattering of freckles.

Yes, Edward, the father of my baby, is a nice-looking man. But still, my feelings for him come from my head and my heart, not from my loins like they should.

Edward is wearing the standard teacher outfit now, and he's putting on some hideous tie. It's maroon and worrying paisley.

"What's that tie you're wearing?" I say.

"What tie?"

"The one you're wearing."

"What's wrong with it?"

"What's right with it?"

"It's a standard tie."

"Exactly."

"So, what's it to you?"

"Nothing, I'm just bring your attention to it."

"Right," he says, flaring his nostrils.

"Right," I say, stifling a giggle.

He walks to the door, opens it and stands there for a second.

"What are you now, my girlfriend?" he says eventually. I hear him chuckle to himself as he closes the door.

* * *

I'm almost at work when Alice calls.

"Hi" she says.

"Hi."

"It's me."

"I know."

She pauses. I know this is because she's giving me a chance to tell her something, she knows I'm being weird. You can't hide anything from Alice, she'll sniff you out in seconds. I wish I could tell her. God, I'm dying to tell her, she's my best friend! But I know Edward would never forgive me. Telling Rose was a huge mistake, I just had to tell someone, and she happened to be there. The fact is that once Alice, indeed anyone knows, there will be months of nudging and winking and 'so when are you getting married?' and we certainly don't need that to start right now.

"Uhmm, I'm just calling because it's only eight days till my birthday, as you know, and I am trying to organize what theme to have."

"Right," I say.

Another pause.

"Can I run through the options with you?"

"Uhmm yes, it's just…"

"Bella?"

"Yes?"

"Are you alright?"

"Yes I'm fine, I'm just on way to work that's all. I can't really talk."

"Oh right. You just sound weird that's all."

"Do I?"

"Yeah, like you're not telling me something."

I swallow hard.

"No, it's nothing. Honestly, nothing's happened," I say, immediately regretting saying 'nothing's happened' since she'll now so know something has.

My friends just turned against me and I'm pregnant by my best friend, that's all.

When I walk into reception, Jess doesn't say anything, she doesn't even look at me. She just tears a note from the pad on her desk, her hair swinging, and hands it to me with a closed-off look of smug importance on her face.

It reads: Jacob rang. Can you meet him for lunch today? It would make his week if you could. Call him.

And because I'm about to interview a woman who hijacked her lover's honeymoon and not only that but got pregnant on it, I think what the hell, it's just lunch with an ex. I get to my desk and I dial the number.


End file.
